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Over the last couple years we have heard a lot about the automotive path to purchase which according to the word on the street now means digital and in many cases only digital even though most major automotive brands are still using print, radio, TV, Magazines etc. Well for those of you who believe that path is 100 per cent a digital path nothing could be further from the truth. Not only does print continue to play a role in the path to purchase it continues to have a major impact.

A recent Brand Spark survey completed for Metroland consumers were asked when planning for an automotive purchase what sources of information do they reference to best prepare for a purchase. 36 per cent of respondents said they used printed flyers and 21 per cent said their Metroland community newspaper. This says 57 per cent use print to prepare for an automotive purchase. Another Metroland study “Pulse” which is their 3rd party intent to purchase over the next 12 months study with over 5000 respondents also supports the automotive path to purchase for the newspaper industry. Pulse tracks automotive intent to spend data on everything from service to new car sales. New car sales alone within the Metroland network show a $20 billion spend over the next 12 months. Remember this survey was completed on the Metroland network so it shows the dollars available using Metroland newspapers. A Newspapers Canada study by Totum in 2016 researching automotive path to purchase over the past 2 years also supports print. Their study showed that 7 out of 10 new car buyers are reading automotive ads in printed newspapers. Lastly a recent study by IPSOS “Connecting for action report” focusing on direct mail showed that impact on digital advertising is much greater when combined with direct mail. One highlight I took from that study was that arousal was 26 per cent higher when direct mail followed digital display.

There are many studies out there that support print advertising in terms of impact for automotive path to purchase so if you are skeptical do some research. If you want to sit down and review Metroland’s Pulse, Brand spark or the Newspapers Canada study I would be happy to share and discuss that data in further detail.

We have all heard about how entrepreneurial the top digital organizations are such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and the list goes on and on. These companies encourage their employees to come up with new ideas, show innovation and be entrepreneurial all while working in a corporate environment. This is after all how these companies have taken over the advertising and marketing world by consistently reinventing themselves along with innovation. So why is it that traditional media advertising doesn’t follow this model? And when I say follow the model I mean be more entrepreneurial.

I for one see myself as an entrepreneur working for a corporation. I did after all start up my own company (FlyerMail) and sell it to Metroland in 2012 less than 3 years after its launch. I like to move quickly in a fast paced environment. You could say I am always on with a brain that is always thinking of a better way to do things. As an entrepreneur I like to think I can always find a solution regardless of the current challenge I am facing. I have taken this approach my whole career whether it’s the company I work for or the company I’m running.

For much of the corporate world from what I have seen we tend to look for corporate experience, experience managing people, experience with a similar product or service, you know all of that stuff we can easily put in a box and pass it around the company. In a nutshell I am talking about those skills that we can teach. The message this sends is that we are happy with the status quo. In the traditional media advertising biz nothing could be further from the truth. We do need to get better, we need to find innovative solutions so we can compete with the Google’s of the world well at least eat into media buys which they are getting a huge chunk. To do this we need to think outside the box, bring new ideas to the table, do things differently, think advertising 24/7, devote at least 1 hour per week to new product development ideas, find the most skilled/driven/passionate staff, come up with efficient systems, and most importantly be more entrepreneurial. What I would love to see is my industry follow the lead of Google and Facebook and hire more Entrepreneurs, let them free and watch the positive impact this has on the traditional advertising industry.

By now it is no secret that Black Friday has turned into a major retail event for Canadians. We may not have caught up to our neighbors to the north yet but it is definitely a growing phenomenon. This year 19.3 million Canadians plan to shop on Black Friday/Cyber Monday with an expected spend of 10.3 billion dollars. Metroland has the perfect audience to advertise your brands with 170+ community and daily newspapers across Ontario. We also have numerous digital platforms not only in our newspaper markets but also province wide as well as national verticals and platforms like Save.ca and WagJag. Then there are the 3 million opt in emails, mobile geofencing (can include the US), tie in behavioral targeting, a content marketing campaign, takeovers on our community network and national sites, and of course impressions on any of the verticals.

To summarize our audience Metroland print products (Mostly newspapers) deliver to over 3.7 million households in Ontario, our digital audience (our own websites including 39 community sites) has about 9 million monthly unique visitors (imagine the impact of branded content) and as I mentioned 3 million opt in emails via Save.ca, WagJag and Travel Alerts. We also have over 30,000 of Canada’s leading websites (roughly 90 percent of the top sites in Canada) as part of our ad exchange if you want to run geofencing or behavioral targeting campaigns. Not to forget automotive we have 2 of Canada’s leading automotive sites in our arsenal Wheels.ca and Autocatch.

Now comes the fun part. If you book a Black Friday/Cyber Monday campaign we have some super deals. We will craft a digital package for you at 25 per cent off our rate card rates. If you book a holiday campaign in our newspapers as long as you buy a Black Friday ad we will give you a future ad of the same size in the same market at no charge as long as you run within a 6 week window. Keep in mind this is a corporate sales promotion as opposed to a local one. Simply get in touch if you want me to put together a proposal for your company or client.

If you haven’t been to Save.ca lately you need to check it out as you will find that the user experience is greatly improved. The experience is simply much more user friendly. The majority of the flyers are now fully tagged which allows the user to create shopping lists, find the store closest to their location, share favorite deals socially (I do this daily), add the retailer to favorites lists and click through to the company website. Download the app and you can scan your favorite loyalty cards, redeem coupons through the cash back feature, find stores using your phones GPS signal and it gets better. Check out the new deals section, read the articles to improve your shopping experience and even step up your game in the kitchen by watching one of our how to recipe videos. If partying is more your thing join the next Twitter party which are always among the top trending events on Twitter. Of course there is more so it’s time to check it out.

What does this mean for our advertisers?

Replacing the flat rate model we once had we will put your company on a cost per view (CPV). How this works is we agree on a budget for each flyer campaign and it is up to Save to hit that budget on a CPV basis. This encourages a relationship between Save and the advertiser to grow together and it is up to us to deliver the audience we agree to at the start of the campaign. Once we show a high ROI we know if we can increase the flyer views the advertiser will see the added value with the increased investment. This is our standard flyer view opportunity. Now comes the fun part! The flyer tagging allows us to share metrics well beyond flyer views, page views and impressions. We are able to share product information such as which flyer items are being clicked on most frequently, click thrus to the company website, total items added to shopping lists and total dollar value added to these lists. This is valuable information which can help with planning of future flyers in terms of products but it also shows the likely ROI as we know these shopping lists are being used for the consumer’s next shopping trip. In order to maximize the traffic we will also include your flyer with a save.ca e-blast to our 1 million subscribers coast to coast. This isn’t even close to everything the site has to offer but since I like to keep my blogs to 500 words or less this is all you are going to get for this one. You will just have to set up a meeting to discuss your next flyer, deal or coupon campaign and I will knock your socks off with the all new Save.ca.

For those of you that haven’t been paying attention the Save.ca (@Saveca) Twitter parties are a big deal. The next Save social media bash will take place on June 22, 2016 at 8:00pm and last call for all tweets will be 9:00pm. My first Save.ca Twitter party experience took place shortly after I arrived at Metroland Corporate Sales and I remember being online and trying to figure out why the save.ca Twitter account was blowing up. Naturally I joined the party not knowing that this was an organized event and well organized at that. It ended up trending in the top 5 in Canada which is very impressive considering the competition for attention on Twitter. On average we hit 5 million impressions with the record reach being 20 million impressions for our parties.

If you are an advertiser on Save make sure your social media department or person is ready to play on June 22nd. If you aren’t currently advertising on the site this may be a good opportunity to jump in to the fray and see how valuable this deal seeking audience is for your brand or banner.

If you are a deal seeker interested in anything barbecue related you definitely don’t want to miss this. Simply answer questions asked by our host Amrita Singh (@frugalocity) a regular guest on CTV’s Canada Am and CBC’s Stephen and Chris and you will have the chance to win amazing prizes for each question answered correctly. Winners will be selected and announced at the end of the hour. So make sure you join in, get ready to save and don’t forget our hashtag #BBQ4less.

A Vividata study says 75 per cent of Canadians rely on community newspapers as a primary source of local community information. The study includes digital media so more evidence that print is far from dead. Follow the link below to see how newspapers compare to other media.

I recently read an article on MarketingMag.ca that focused on brands tapping into the recent success and lofty expectations of our very own Toronto Blue Jays. So my head started to spin to find a solution as to how my clients could best tap into this audience. The answer is pretty simple Metrolands geofencing. Metroland can leverage our ad exchange which includes over 30,000 premium Canadian websites on our mobile network that equates to 90 per cent of the top Canadian websites. For those that are not yet familiar with how geofencing works it’s pretty simple: When a user is on their mobile device with location services on we can target those users with your ad while they are surfing the web from their phone. For example if they were checking the box score on Sportsnet from the game your ad may appear. We simply target a radius from the Rogers Centre for example 1 km. Not only would your brand reach people at the game but also those in bars in restaurants in the area which taps into the audience you are after. I would hazard to guess that during a Blue Jays home game the available impressions with this platform would be very high. Depending on volume you can purchase these impressions for as low as $8 per thousand. Let’s get in touch if geofencing would make sense for your brand. Check out the Marketing Mag article which I have copied below.